


Journey To The End Of Night

by Khalliys



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: ANGST in all caps, Depression, Empress Undyne Ending, F/F, Gen, Guilt, POV Undyne (Undertale), PTSD, Post-Undertale Neutral Route, Undyne works really hard to fill in Asgore's footsteps, Undyne-centric, characters trying to look out for each other, everyone tries to cope, except for Undyne and Sans all major characters are dead, figuring out how to go on, hurt & not much comfort, implied suicide, lots of self-loathing, nihilistic thoughts, surprisingly little rage, this is kinda just one big character analysis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2020-11-08 13:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20836496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khalliys/pseuds/Khalliys
Summary: Undyne needed to appear like she'd be able to break the barrier by sheer will-power, so that they all could have their revenge. And their justice. Yet on the other hand she also had to be their comfort and support. Everyone was hurting, but no matter what, somehow she had to make them keep on hoping. She needed them to be hopeful, so that she could stop losing Hope herself.It felt like an impossible task.





	1. Boil Below The Water

Undyne just stared, body frozen still. She felt cold and all too hot at the same time. A burning sensation rose within her chest like a wave made of sharp, splintering ice that would collapse at the highest point and skewer her soul to pieces. Her breaths went shallow and short. There wasn’t enough air reaching her lungs. It was like water pressed through her ears and into her skull, drowning every external noise and it became all too loud. She couldn’t hear a single sound except for the rushing of magic beneath her skin. She wanted to fall to her knees, but her feet were rooted to the ground, legs rigid, spine rigid. 

Papyrus was gone. Alphys was gone. Asgore was gone. And it was her fault. She hadn’t been able to save them, she - s_he hadn't even tried. _She had failed them. As a guardian and as a friend. She _was_ a failure. A weak, pathetic failure. It was her fault, because she could have… she _should_ have… it would have been her _duty_ to… But still… she didn’t do anything useful. And now they were dead. It was her fault. Hers, hers and only hers.

And all because she had been such a coward. A coward that had never had the heart to tell Papyrus he just wasn’t suited to be a guard. That his motives for joining were misguided. That he didn't need to be a Royal Guard to make friends and that he already got a friend in her. That he was just too nice and naive to seriously hurt even the most rotten and villainous of souls anyway.  


She was a coward for  _ never _ having wanted to change that about him.  


She never gave him a chance to become a warrior that would have chosen to use his power to defended himself and others. Yet, despite knowing all that, she still had sent him out there to capture a human. It was absolutely unforgivable. She had let him down and now the blame for his death was hers.

And god was she a coward for having never told  _ her _ what she really felt. For being too hesitant because of ridiculous what if’s and what then’s. For inhibiting herself too much, because feelings are scary and she hated that sense of vulnerability that came with putting them into words.  


But most of all she had been too afraid of knowing the truth. Or more accurately of it negatively impacting their relationship. Undyne had been aware that something was wrong for a long time, but never encouraged her to make it alright. Ever since the day they met she had known that Alphys hadn't been okay and still never found the courage to talk about it. She _ could _ have helped her through all of her pains and troubles.  


She  _ should _ have.  


But she didn’t.  


How dare she ever think of her feelings as love when she never did anything to show them. She was disgusting. A selfish, disgusting coward.

And she was a coward for never calling Asgore out on his desperate deception. For not offering more help, for not taking more of his burden away, for choosing to stay blind to the weariness in his eyes. For leaving him to deal with it, because her damn body couldn’t endure just a little bit of heat. She should have continued to pursue the human the second she regained consciousness, no matter if she had lost her own life in the process.  


It would have been her duty to die for him.

She could have saved them all. She would have had the power to do so. She could have chosen not to give the human something to defend themselves with. But she didn’t. She had just been useless and stupid and too prideful with her ludicrous means of honor and fairness and now her head was bursting and she couldn’t breathe. She felt too sick to throw up, her throat was splitting and the guilt was smothering her and she would probably choke on her own anguished scream, but she couldn’t even make the tiniest sound. Something was spiraling so far down – _she_ was going down and desperately wanted to hit the ground   
so  
very  
hard. 

But she just stood and stared. Stared at all the dust scattered in front of the barrier. Their doom - it would be inevitable now. The Souls were gone. Asgore was gone. Alphys was gone. Papyrus was gone. They were all gone.

A hand moved hesitantly to Undyne’s right shoulder. She felt it hovering, inching way too close, almost touching.

“DON’T-“, her voice thundered through the hall, making RG1 flinch away like struck by lightning, “-touch me.”

There was no strength left. No stability. She drew in a very long and shaky breath. She couldn’t allow herself to drown just yet. She didn’t earn the right to be with them.  


Undyne finally tore her eyes away from Asgore’s dust and abruptly turned around. She marched back into the castle without saying another word.  
  


***  
  


When Undyne stepped into her house she didn’t bother to turn the light on. She didn’t bother to do much at all at first. She just stopped a couple steps into the room and stared into the darkness. There was a burning sensation right behind her sternum that made it very hard to breathe. It was cold and constricting and it hurt.  _ It hurt so much.  _ Her head was aching, too, and even though that was probably mainly a remaining effect of the heat stroke she suffered earlier, it just fed into the hole growing inside her chest. Her skull was throbbing. Her Soul was, too.

Eventually her eye started focusing on what lay on her table and she reached out for it.  


Carefully Undyne picked up Alphys’ glasses with both hands and slowly clutched them to her chest, continuing to stare at nothing in particular.  


It didn’t feel soothing, but still like a lifeline. Lifelines weren’t meant to ease any pain, they were just there to help keep the head of someone drowning above water. The pain was what she deserved.

Releasing a shortened breath she removed one hand from the cold material to take her phone out of her pocket. She tapped the button for the dimensional box and pointed the sensor at the glasses.  


Watching them disappear from her hand made her heart contract painfully and she immediately shoved the phone back.

As if there was a way to run from the downwards spiral of her feelings, Undyne briskly walked around the table, approaching her stove and kitchen counters. For a moment she hesitated, her mind trying to catch up, but she wouldn't let it. So it reminded her that on any other day it’d be about time for Papyrus’ cooking lesson. 

Again her heart contracted painfully. It was beating much too fast and her breathing was too shallow. Undyne tried to take some deeper breaths and turned towards her sink, filling the cup that was still in it with water and downed it in one go. 

She filled it again. 

Repeat. 

When that wasn’t enough she held her head under the running stream of water until it numbed her skin and she could no longer feel how cold it was. She turned the tap off.

Leaning heavily on the kitchen counter Undyne managed to control her breaths while she watched droplets of water fall from her face into the sink.

Countless thoughts swirled through her head - how she couldn’t just stand there and continue to do nothing; how nothing was all she could do now, because everything else was too late; how she needed to do anything,  _ anything at all, _ because she was still here and others were still here too and therefore she had to do  _ something  _ for those that were  _ still here _ \- but they all drowned before she could grasp them. 

Only one thought stayed.

Cooking Lesson.

She turned the tap on again. Mechanically Undyne grabbed for a pot, filled it with water and then placed it on the stove. She set the heat and stared at the water, still lightly sloshing around, slowly stilling. 

Her hand let go of the dial and she turned to the rack on her wall. She had tomatoes up there, positioned precisely so that they would fall down onto the counter if she stomped on the ground hard enough. 

Papyrus had always been impressed by that little trick. 

Undyne just slowly reached up and gently took the tomatoes from the rack. For a moment her eye stayed fixed on her hands, fingers tensing as if she wanted to crush the tomatoes between them. After all, that had been her method of getting Papyrus acquainted with a little bit of violence. 

Undyne started to methodically cut the tomatoes with a knife. Smashing them had always been metaphorical. 

Maybe she should have told him that. 

When she was done she looked back at the pot on the stove. The water took quite a long time to boil. Her hand reached for the dial again, but she thought better of it. 

Instead Undyne turned to the rack and extracted an onion from a bowl of vegetables. She had only used some of these in her first cooking lesson with Papyrus. He had immediately hated them, because he kept catching tears in his eye-sockets while cutting them. She remembered so vividly how she had teased him about how onions apparently were too intense for a rookie like him and then he had gone on to cut all of the onions she had. When she tasted the end result the spiciness had definitely made her catch some tears as well. She never made him use onions again. 

It had never really been about actually cooking something edible anyway.

Maybe she should have told him that. 

Maybe she just should have been sincere from the very beginning. But it had been easier to be a coward. 

Her chest felt tight, like something in there was twisting itself into a knot, but Undyne just carefully peeled the onion. She glanced back to the stove. The water didn’t boil. She grabbed the knife again and eyed the onion for a moment. She bisected it with a quick cut - and left it at that. Moved away before her eye could start to burn and took a package of spaghetti out of one of her drawers. Another glance to the pot. Her hands started opening the package while she continued to stare at the water. 

Why wasn’t it boiling?

She put the spaghetti aside and opened another drawer to get out a pan, some oil, salt and pepper. When she got to a bundle of herbs that Asgore had given her, she stopped. The knot twisted tighter. She felt her heart beat against her ribs so heavily it was uncomfortable. Undyne slowly turned her head to the stovetop. 

_ Why was it still not boiling? _

She put everything on the counter and stood before the pot. Her sweaty hand grabbed for the dial and she slowly cranked up the heat. The flames rose higher. 

And higher.

And higher. 

It needed to boil.

She didn’t pay any attention to the opened package of spaghetti catching on fire. Or how the flames reached for the ceiling. How her skin burned from the heat. She didn’t know when her heart rate had started speeding up again. When her breathing had gone labored again. Her vision dizzy. She needed the water to boil. 

_ She needed to boil. _

Without any regards for herself Undyne grabbed the burning pot on the burning stove and in a quick turning motion she flung it across the room. It crashed into the opposing wall and then went clattering onto the ground with some parts of the wall. It left a messy trace of hot water all over the room. With scorched hands she went for the scorched spaghetti and tossed the package right after. Her carpet caught fire. Breaths heaving she took the pan and swept everything off the counter. Then she threw it and it smashed through her window. 

Her hands hurt, her head hurt, her heart hurt. She needed to be angry. She needed to be angry. She needed to be angry so she could  _ do something. _

With a broken yell she sent a barrage of spears towards the burning pot. Some went through the hole in her wall. Her table caught fire. Her head was spinning, but it wasn’t enough. 

Undyne looked around aimlessly, wiping her forehead and roughly removing some strands of hair from her face. The smoke from the stupid burning stove clogged up her lungs. She bared her teeth at it and shoved her arms into the space between the stove and the kitchen counters. Gripping tightly onto it she bend her knees and with all the force left inside of her she tore it from the wall and hurled it towards her table.

A jet of flame blinded her and reflexively she threw up her arms in front of her face. The sound of an explosion deafened her ears and had her stumbling, but it wasn’t enough to sweep her off her feet.  _ It just wasn’t enough. _ She easily caught herself and slowly walked into the room that was now very well on fire. 

And hot. It got so hot again. Just like it had been when she had failed to save anyone.

Undyne’s hand brushed lightly over the top of her piano as she moved around it. And while her aching fingers were burning at the touch, the piano itself wasn’t and it wouldn’t, because Alphys had fireproofed it for her. Alphys had made it to last when nothing else would.

Undyne pressed a key, but she couldn’t hear it. Her ears were ringing. She lifted both hands and smashed them into the keyboard hard, but she still couldn’t hear the dissonant uproar of the piano. The ringing got louder. She hunched forward and leaned her forehead on the still rather cool lid, while she kept pressing down into the pain, because she deserved it.

She was angry. 

She was  _ so _ angry at herself.

Cold sweat was mingling with her still wet hair and for a few moments she just tried to breathe again, but her senses had started to dull and the smoke got in the way. 

Eventually she just slumped to her knees and let go. Turning around, Undyne sat down and leaned her back against the foot of the piano. Her eye roamed over the burning chaos and her front door suddenly seemed very far away. 

Her gaze came to rest on the charred onion that had rolled under one of her chairs. She tried to stare through the stinging in her eye while her vision turned blurry more and more, until all she could see where flickering blobs of color. When she pressed it shut and sunk her head to her knees the tears felt hot enough to boil her skin.

She should get up and leave. She needed to get out and finally do her job. But it was too late. There was no job left to finish. Only she was left to finish. Finish a job undone by the human after she had collapsed in Hotland. Unfinished for spite and mockery. Maybe Sans had just interrupted her fate when he brought her back to her house. And what she actually needed to do was… 

to boil... 

to death.

  
  


“ooooohh……”

Undyne flinched at the sudden, muffled noise that bore through her sluggish and increasingly dark thoughts. When she looked up, Napstablook had floated into her house and looked around the burning room before they looked at her through bleary eyes. 

“i’m sorry for interrupting… a spear was just rushing past me… and i saw the fire and… i thought it’s probably not your usual house fire and… oh no, i’m making this more awkward…”

Undyne opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Her mind drew a blank. Napstablook just watched her and some of their tears fell into the hissing flames below them. 

“... i’m sad, too…”

Undyne pressed her lips tightly together and swallowed a lump that immediately formed in her throat. “I’m sorry.”

“oh no... now i made you feel like that’s your fault…..”

She badly wanted to answer that it was, but there was no point. So she just stared at them while her house continued to burn. At this point her mind had become a little too hazy to remind her that she  _ really _ needed to get out. 

“um… there are people outside… they kind of worry…”

Undyne caught herself from apologizing again. Instead she nodded kind of mechanically and moved to get up. It hurt when she used one hand to prop herself up and she got very dizzy, trying to stand upright. Little white dots danced across her vision. She brushed the back of her hand over her right cheek and remaining eye and staggered a bit, but managed to navigate to her front door while Napstablook followed and muttered silent apologies that they couldn’t be of any help.

She opened the door and saw Aaron, Shyren and Woshua nervously standing a couple of feet away. Under any other circumstances she would have felt too prideful to show weakness, but right now she found she had not much of a choice. At this point she felt unbearably sick and just needed to sit down and breathe. So she dragged herself along her house to the cavern wall across her training area. The others seemed a little hesitant to approach her, but when they saw Napstablook following Undyne, they also moved towards her. 

Aaron stopped a couple feet from her and wrung his hands, looking like he might wanted to do something, but didn’t know what.

“Undyne, are you alright?! ;(“

She wanted to be honest and say no. She wanted to lie and say yes. She wanted to be cynical and ask why he even worried since this really wasn't her first house fire. She wanted to be left alone and claim it didn't matter. But since none of that seemed like good options, she didn't say anything at all. Just leaned her head back against the cold stones, sat down and breathed. Woshua cringed a little while looking her up and down and it's feet twitched. 

“You look... filthy. You need water? And soap?”

Part of her wanted to wave Woshua off, but she had to admit that would be stupid. “Water.”

Woshua splashed water at her and into her face and Undyne thanked it, coughing a little. The little monster didn't seem very satisfied. Aaron came a bit closer, still fidgeting.

“You, you heard the bad news, right? ;(”

“Yeah. I have.”

She hesitantly looked up at them, tense and expecting them to ask her why she was here. Why she hadn't killed the human. Why the Captain of the Royal Guard had failed to do her job. Why she was even alive when others weren't. Why she hadn't protected them. 

But they didn't. Aaron and Shyren merely looked scared and Napstablook was still just crying his tears. Woshua had kind of a look of disgust on its face and Undyne wasn't quite sure if that was directed at her or her state, because it kept staring at her blackened, burned hands. 

“That human was really dirty”, Woshua spat with a frown and pattered to her side, where it continued to pour water on her hands. Now it was emanating a green glow and while the pain in her fingers started to fade, the gesture was like a stab to her heart. She really didn’t feel like she deserved any kindness right now.

“Scary… “, Shyren added in a mumbled tone and Aaron agreed. “Definitely creepy. ;(“

Napstablook just lowered their head and new tears fell from their eyes. “i thought they looked kinda scared... when i met them… i really should have known better… than to let them pass…”

An uncomfortable silence stretched over the cove, only disturbed by the crackling of fire. They probably waited for Undyne to say something. Eventually Aaron spoke up again.

“What are we going to do now? ;(”

Undyne finally looked up, drew in a heavy breath and slowly released it. She flexed her fingers and they no longer hurt.

“I… I’ll take care of that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is something I've been writing on and off for over two years now - currently with 4 finished chapters that I'll put out over the next weeks. 
> 
> I've written that first segment so long ago, sometime in 2016 and it was basically just a moody 1am oneshot, but one faraway day I felt like I could use that as the start of this story. The second segment was written MUCH later, just a couple months ago, I hope it still reads somewhat connected.
> 
> Also, I'm not an English native, so if you find a grammatical error that makes you stumble I'd love if you pointed it out to me. I also have no idea how to correctly use paragraphs in English, lmao


	2. Fake It Till We Make It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random fun fact for the last chapter: the idea that Undyne still blows up her house without befriending the human was taken directly from the game. If you never befriend her, but also don't kill enough to make her revolt against Toriel, Papyrus will still tell you that Undyne's living with him and Sans because she's lost her house. I really don't think Toriel would be that heartless to also kick her out of her house after terminating her employment, so that must mean Undyne lost it some other way...

Undyne had spent hours and crumpled and torn countless pieces of paper while trying to figure out what to say to everyone. Be who they expected her to be for once. But nothing ever seemed good enough. Or… just enough. Good didn't really feel like an accessible state anymore.  


The tip of her pen would bore into the paper harder and harder, but all it did was leave a black mark that grew bigger and bigger because her hand wouldn’t move.  


She had no words. Too many of them would be too apologetic anyway. And giving too much reassurance felt fake in times like these. But if she couldn’t find enough words to say she would either seem cold or empty and hopeless. That wouldn’t do. She needed to appear like she would be able to break the barrier by sheer will-power so that they all could have their revenge. And their justice. 

Yet on the other hand she also had to be their comfort and support. Everyone was hurting. But no matter what, somehow she had to make them keep on hoping. The dying couldn't continue. She needed them to be hopeful so that she could stop losing hope herself. 

It felt like an impossible task.

There was a lump in her throat, because she couldn’t stop thinking of Asgore and how much everybody needed him right now. How much she needed him. Was this how he felt back when these filthy humans had killed his children? Did he too sit here at that same desk, leaning over a page that was as blank as his mind, not knowing what to do? She felt ice cold just thinking about it and her grip tightened. 

Was everything just doomed to repeat over and over? Freedom and happiness, so close within reach and then humans would come and tear it all apart again, leaving them weaker every time until… nothing would be...

When the pen snapped under the pressure Undyne threw it against the furthest wall and buried her head into her ink-stained hands. 

She just didn’t know. No matter what soothing words she could come up with, she knew they wouldn’t have any effect now and they weren’t enough. It probably wasn’t anything people were even expecting from her. Because she wasn’t Asgore. If anything, they expected her to be angry.

Maybe they all just needed to be angry. 

In the end she left with a blank page on what used to be Asgore’s desk, just hoping that the right words would come to her when faced with the situation, just like they always did. 

  
***

There was no golden light shining through the windows of the hall today. All that made it into the cavern and illuminated the castle grounds was dull, weak and grey. It fitted the occasion. It probably fitted the collective mindset of the entire Underground right now.

Her good eye roamed over the crowd of monsters that filled the hallway and for a moment she felt the need to sit down. It competed with the urge to just turn around and hide away, but she could not ever do either of those. Especially not now. Never again. 

Everyone was quietly looking at her. Undyne was glad she could grip onto her spear tightly. Her other hand was a tense fist behind her back. She had never had a problem with standing in front people, throwing out passionate speeches or yelling encouragements. But this was different. These people weren’t her Guard. And to them she was no longer just the Captain. The whole world had changed for everyone. 

Today, standing in front of all these monsters in the golden hall, she felt judged. And her head was swimming with too many disorganized lines. 

“There are some things I want to say to all of you.”

Her voice felt too quiet in her throat, but it echoed off the walls and bounced back all too loud. It was hard to look at their faces, but she forced herself to keep going. 

“I know things aren’t easy right now. I know… things are pretty grim, actually. We’ve lost a lot the day that child came through. We lost loved ones… we lost our king… And I…”  
_ want to apologize _

“I understand many of you feel like all our hopes and dreams have turned to dust alongside them.”   
_ because I failed everyone  _

“With the Souls Asgore had gathered gone too, our situation may look very hopeless now…”  
_ he should be here in my stead and make you hopeful again, like he always did _

“But please, let’s not lose our hopes and dreams just yet. I know it’s hard.”  
_ and I should have been among the dust he’d scatter _

“Keep them close. Keep each other close.”  
_ I should at least have died protecting everyone _

“Let’s keep on living for those who can’t!”

Undyne had raised her voice a bit to drown out the growing self-hatred that just didn't want to shut up and threatened to clog up her mind. Her fingers clutching the spear felt stiff and cold. 

“Because I know we can still do this. We can still break the barrier, even with this set-back.”

Most of the Monsters in the crowd were just silently looking at each other. Disbelieving. Undyne heard quiet murmurs stirring up and she felt sweat forming on the back of her neck. 

It was like the sound a piano made when you only pushed the pedal and abruptly let go. All the strings were rumbling and vibrating, but you didn’t hit a key. It didn't produce a melody, only noise. 

_ How will they believe you if you can’t speak with conviction. With no passion left for your words. No determination. _

“We will break the barrier.”

She started again, but then wasn't even sure if she heard herself saying it over the sound of all the silent voices. 

_ Remember to be angry. Be angry. You need to be angry. _

With a swift motion Undyne raised her spear upwards and then slammed the handle back down onto the ground. The loud thud it made was followed by the desperately needed silence. 

“We WILL break the barrier!!”

She thudded her left fist onto her chest, right above her soul. 

“I swear it to you! It's NOT over yet!! As long as we keep hoping, as long as we keep going, as long as we’re still here, we have a chance! Listen, I know it's hard. But I promise, we won’t need to wait for seven more humans to fall down here!”

She would not continue Asgore’s strategy. And she should probably say so out loud, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that. Saying it would be equal to admitting that Asgore’s plan had always been a bluff. And probably everybody had already known this for a long time. Still she couldn’t. It’d feel like betrayal. Asgore had been the king everybody had needed. She wanted everyone to keep remembering him as such. She wanted herself to keep remembering him as such.

Finally she unclenched her fist and pointed one finger upwards. She was glad her hand didn’t shake.

“Just one more. One soul and then I’ll go to the surface and get the rest. And I’ll get even more for you. We’ll be prepared. And then… then we will wage war.”

The silence continued, but it started to feel different. Maybe it started to feel less EMPTY. Maybe a bit stunned. Maybe less hopeless. Or maybe that’s just what she hoped.

“They may think they’ve gotten away unpunished, but WE will come for them! And then JUSTICE will be served. We’ll make them pay for their crimes with their SOULS.”

A bead of sweat trickled down her back and she could feel her heart in her throat. There were murmurs again. Quiet sounds that might have been approval. Followed by louder exclamations. Little yeahs and bigger yeses. They started to feel… something in the vicinity of almost mildly determined. 

Fearing they could lose this little spark again any second she chimed in and yelled even louder. 

“YEAH! We WON’T be defeated! We WON’T GIVE UP!”

Undyne threw her hand holding the spear into the air, bared her teeth into a dangerous smile and willed herself to believe the things she just said. That betting on war again was the right way. She had to do it. For them. Maybe all they had to do to keep going was feign grim determination together.

“Let’s show them how strong we are if we believe in ourselves! They’re gonna have to try a little harder than that! For everyone they took from us … we will live on!”

And finally … they responded with the quietest cheer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter originally belonged to the next one, which is why it's a lot shorter. But it makes more sense to have it stand on it's own.


	3. With Dust We Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the one chapter that was the biggest pain to write ever. This is the damn thing that took 2 years. It might be a mess because of this, but I'm just so glad that eventually I managed to beat this thing into submission - literally.

Undyne was slowly walking towards the throne room, carrying a large urn in her hands that was fairly empty at this point. Her mind and Soul felt even more empty. Like there was nothing left. If she could think of anything in this moment she might have wondered how she even managed to get to where she was right now. It was like the seconds, the minutes and the hours before were just slipping from her memory as they passed. She might have not been there at all, detached from her body and only watching from afar.  
  
And yet there were people following behind her. They probably didn’t feel much different. When she stopped they would stop, too. When she turned around she looked into tired faces that all seemed so lost. Undyne probably could have gone wherever and they’d just follow without questioning it. Not asking anything. Questions and answers didn’t matter at this point. Whatever words she spoke didn’t matter, but they still wanted to hear them, because listening to her kept them from having to listen to their own gloomy thoughts.  
  
At this point Undyne couldn’t really remember all the things she had said along the way.

***  
  
They had started in the Ruins, a place most of them had never even been to before. But the spell that used to keep the door sealed had been dispersed, because the caster was no longer alive. They had found her the day after, when the remaining Guards and Undyne had traced back the human’s steps to check on everyone. And to get an accurate death count.  
  
For better or worse, most victims hadn’t been difficult to identify. Identifying the former Queen hadn’t been difficult. Today they had scattered most of her dust in the golden flower bed at the end of the cave, as well as some of Asgore’s, though respectfully in a different spot. It didn’t feel right to mix their dust.  
  
In numbers, the Ruins had suffered the greatest losses. A small, lone Froggit had been left with the dust of it's three siblings; a family of five Vegetoids had disappeared; a young Migosp had seen it's parent and two Moldsmall getting killed and also lost a cousin; a traumatized Whimsun identified the dust of two Loox that had no families left in the Ruins. Distant relatives from Hotland who didn’t even know them ended up spreading the dust onto a carpet of fallen red leaves, because they had no idea what their most favourite thing or even place had been.  
  
  
Heading towards Snowdin, the funeral procession stopped at Doggo’s station. With a tucked tail and ears flat against his head, Lesser Dog put a box of dog treats on Doggo’s station. Greater Dog filled it with some of the gathered dust and then Undyne and the remaining Guards took turns scattering the rest onto his station, while Endogeny sat beside them and uttered mournful, multilayered howls. They did the same at the Dogi’s stations, but mixed Dogaressa’s and Dogami’s dust beforehand.  
  
Approaching Snowdin they also paid tribute to two teen Ice Caps and two young Snowdrakes called Snowy and Chill. This was especially heartbreaking because Snowy’s mother refused to let go of his urn. Her amalgamated form kept dripping tears mixed with unstable matter and she melted into a weeping puddle that clung to her son’s urn when her husband suggested scattering Snowy’s dust on his Joke book. All she did was slowly repeat her sons name over and over and no one forced her to let go.   
  
  
When they moved towards Papyrus’ and Sans’ home, Undyne already felt so emotionally drained, she just wanted to curl up on their old, jangly couch and sleep forever. Though, at the same time she wanted to be as far away as possible from it and … well, everything else, honestly. It took every last bit of her frayed willpower to keep going forward. Step by step. The cold air cut sharply into her lungs, more than it ever had on any other day.  
  
Sans had refused to participate in the funeral. When Undyne and her Guards had reported the victims to the citizens of Snowdin, Sans had just stood before the door to his and Papyrus' home. Lazy grin plastered on his face like always and more fake than it had ever been he just said that “mournmedy” wasn’t his thing and handed her Papyrus’ urn. He had gestured to her black armor and proclaimed that she was better _suited_ for this kind of stuff. Before Undyne could even find a semblance of a response that didn't involve wanting to kick him through his door, in hopes that he found some sense inside, he had already stepped through said door and disappeared.  
  
She didn’t know where Sans was right now.  
  
When Undyne found herself in front of his and Papyrus’ door again she couldn’t help but turn her head and look for him. It was just a few heartbeats in which her anger and disappointment in him had no meaning and she just wished he’d appear out of nowhere. _That_ was his thing after all. But not today.  
  
Slowly staring back at the door it almost seemed as if it would open any second and a bright and enthusiastic Papyrus would step out and be confused at their procession and grave faces. Guessing something like that they all must have failed his puzzles in the forest and came looking for his unparalleled genius to help them solve it.  
  
Her throat felt tight.  
  
Undyne had words for every victim. For every mourning family. She also had words for Papyrus. How he had been one of the toughest and most upright Souls to ever walk the Underground. Someone with unshakable resolve when he set his overzealous mind on something. Reliable to no end, even if you called him at 3 am. Someone who wanted to be there for everybody and believed in everybody. A goofy dude you could laugh, banter and snow-wrestle with for hours. How he was one of those Monsters you’d remember encountering for the rest of your life. That Papyrus was someone who could never be forgotten.  
  
On a whim she decided to do what she should have done months ago and made him an honorary member of the Royal Guard. Said it was for standing up to the human. Entering the skeleton brothers’ house she didn’t really know how to convey it properly, so Undyne ended up tearing the Delta Rune badge off her armor and placed it on his race car bed. She put one of his figurines and one of his bone attacks beside it and scattered his dust on it. Each of her remaining Guards did so as well and they paid their respect to Papyrus by putting their fists above their Souls and saluting to him.  
  
As everyone left the room to go back outside, Undyne stayed behind just a bit. It was indescribably hard to tear her eye away from the dust on Papyrus’ race car bed.  
  
Eventually she lowered her head and quietly muttered: “I’m so sorry.”  
  
And for whatever reason, instead of going back downstairs, she found herself in front of Sans’ door after she left his brother’s room. She knocked, but there was no response. She clenched and unclenched her fist and said “Knock, knock” while tapping her knuckles against the door again, but of course the result wasn’t any different. There was only silence and she felt stupid for trying and stupid because it hurt nonetheless.  
  
  
Before the funeral procession left Snowdin they gathered around the gyftmas tree and some of the residents sprinkled a bit of Asgore’s dust onto its branches and the presents beneath them. Undyne figured he would have liked that. Giving a piece of himself to every part of his kingdom in death as he had always done in life.  
  
  
There were no casualties in Waterfall, so they went on to the little statue on the rainy path. Old Gerson joined them in his old armor, big hammer attached to his back. But his movements were slow and heavy and he looked very tired. Undyne carefully placed an umbrella in the rocks to shield the statue and when the quiet melody of a music box started playing Gerson just sighed and sprinkled some of Asgore’s dust on the statue. He mumbled unfinished sentences into his beard, shook his head and sighed again.  
  
While some of Waterfall’s residents took turns to also spread a little of Asgore’s dust, Gerson went over to Undyne. When she looked down at him his one good eye seemed full of many, many thoughts. There probably were a lot of things he could have said, but didn’t want to and a lot of things he wanted to say but didn’t deem appropriate in this situation. It accumulated into just another sigh. Gerson gestured for her to bend down to him and when she did he put a hand on her shoulder.  
  
“You got this, ‘lil urchin. Come by some time for some talking, tea and Crab Apples. If you bring the tea, I'll provide the Crab Apples free of charge, waha… ha.”  
  
He gave her a mirthless grin and a pat on her back. The smile she returned felt hollow and stiff on her features.  
  
“Generous as ever, old geezer. I’ll think about it.”  
  
Her old mentor kept his hand on her shoulder for another moment and she was the first to look away and straightened herself back up again. She couldn’t stand that bit of worry she saw creeping into Gerson’s expression. She didn’t quite feel like she “got this”.  
  
When they were ready to go on Gerson excused himself, saying his old legs weren’t used to walking long distances anymore.  
  
  
Knowing that Hotland lay ahead of them, Undyne felt a burning pressure on her lungs. It got worse with every step she took and the rising heat was like a wall that pushed her back. When the laboratory finally came into view she just had to stop for a moment, trying very hard to breathe. It felt like invisible hands clasped around her neck and squeezed so hard the pain bled into her chest. It mingled with the condemning guilt that came crawling up to the forefront of her head to remind her that she hadn’t protected her, hadn’t saved her, hadn’t done anything for her, even though all of that had been well within her might. She gritted her teeth so hard her jaw ached and her hands balled into fists. The people behind her just waited quietly, probably assuming it was because of the heat. After all, everybody knew she could barely deal with it. After all... that was one of the main reasons why things were the way they were right now. Because she had been reckless. Weak. Useless. An idiot.  
  
Undyne released her breath forcedly slowly to fight down the urge of gasping it out and continued forward, crossing the bridge and her heartbeat was in her throat. It drummed against her ears from the inside.  
  
When RG1 hastily went ahead and offered her a cup of water from the water dispenser she just stared at it. He might as well just slapped her, because that would’ve hurt considerably less. Numbly taking it she became starkly aware of the fact that her hands had been empty. Asgore’s urn was currently being carried by RG2 and Alphys had none. There was no dust. There was nothing.  
  
She wondered how emptiness could feel so heavy.  
  
With a hollow “thank you” she chugged the contents of the cup and felt it evaporating as she went on. With every step her mind felt more and more blank - full of white noise if anything. All she could do to pay Alphys her last respect was to use words that would never be enough. Words that would be directed at nothing, because there was no dust. With someone’s dust in hand you could at least pretend that your final farewell would forever stay with them after you spread it. But whatever words she could say now would never ever reach anything of her. Nothing was there, nothing was left.  
  
Having lost count of how many times she had already done this today, Undyne again turned around to face everyone gathered behind her. She noticed that the Amalgamates and their families had come directly to the front and swallowed.  
  
What Undyne ended up saying about Alphys was fairly impersonal. She said that by creating Mettaton, Doctor Alphys had brought a light and hope to the Underground people hadn’t experienced in ages. That her advances in technology made life trapped down here a little more bearable and worthwhile. That she had undoubtedly been the brightest Monster in the whole Underground. And Undyne’s mind supplied her with the irony of that, considering that darkness had literally swallowed the scientist whole. And maybe that was why she cut herself short, because with that thought her self-hatred wallowed up so violently she almost choked on it. She focused on the Amalgamates and empathised how the human had left them with death and loss, but Doctor Alphys had left them with life that was thought lost.  
  
Her voice almost cracked as she said that.  
  
It was then that Reaper Bird made a garbled noise and snatched something from a Whimsalot who was hovering right beside them. It was a bag of chips. They stalked past Undyne and lay it down in front of the lab door. Set into motion by this there was Lemon Bread, flanked by Aaron and Shyren, setting a can of soda next to the bag of chips. Then Lesser Dog and Greater Dog put down some dog cookies while Endogeny whimpered and curled their massive body around the objects. Even Snowy's mother, still incredibly miserable and with properties that looked more like melting ice, slowly came up to the pile of mementos and dripped more than dropped a beat up looking DVD case onto it.  
  
During all of this Undyne felt incapable of doing anything more than stare at the mementos, while her heart felt ready to burst, her throat ready to split, her tears ready to spill. Two voices behind her wailed how, like, unbearable sweet and sad this was and why they didn't think of something and that might have been the proper reaction, but her locomotor system had just about shut down and instead all she could do was listen to her mind screaming at her about the unfairness of everything and just how much she had failed the people she loved.  
  
She didn't know how many seconds it took, but eventually all went quiet and her stiff shoulders sagged. Undyne turned and wordlessly took Asgore’s urn from RG2 and then went down on one knee in front of the objects the Amalgamates had collected for Alphys.  
  
As she gently sprinkled a little bit of Asgore’s dust onto them - knowing how much Alphys had liked him - she hollowly stated that what losing Alphys meant for the future of Monsterkind wasn’t anything anyone would be able to fathom yet.  
  
  
  
There had been only one other fatality in Hotland and her family had already taken care of her funeral. The spiders had left Muffet's dust in her den where she had been killed and covered it with dozens of tiny flowers. It had already been like this when Undyne and her Guards had checked on Hotlands citizens a couple days ago. After talking to her family they took care of bringing the spiders from the Ruins back to the rest of their clan in Hotland. Now all they could do was to lay down flowers on their own, with Undyne offering some words about Muffet, her bakery and the separation of her clan that she didn’t live to see reunited.  
  
  
When they reached the MTT Resort the funeral procession had grown in size and also wasn’t as quiet as before. The monsters tears and heartbreak over the loss of their idol was a lot more palpable and it left Undyne with a bitter taste on her tongue, that was probably irrational. While it was true that she had always felt like there was something off about the robot and had greatly disliked his narcissistic attitude, it was also true that as an entertainer he had improved the lives of many.  
  
Her speech about him kind of repeated what she had already mentioned of the robot at the laboratory, just a little more in depth. It didn’t matter that she never liked him. It’d be wrong and unfair to downplay his importance to Monsterkind. He had given them something to look forward to, brought them enjoyment and excitement and he had offered them a distraction from their troubles and the monotony of living in a dark, cramped cave. He had given them Hope. Undyne certainly could respect that.  
And he had been Alphys’ creation - although after reading her notes in the dark laboratory she wasn’t so sure of what that had meant exactly.  
  
Like with Alphys, Mettaton had left no dust behind - but a body. However, regardless of whether or not he had been just a robot, corporating his body into the funeral would have been just creepy, in her opinion. So the Monsters resolved to strewing flowers and glitter into the fountain - after Undyne had corrected the positioning of Mettaton’s statue, because that was the least she could do and the water hitting the floor instead of the fountain had always irked her.  
A couple of his fans - a lion monster and two monsters named Catty and Bratty whom she knew from visits to the garbage dump - also ended up speaking encouraging words to Mettaton’s grieving fans, telling them that their idol would have wanted them to keep going and that he surely would have said something along the lines of ‘the show must go on, darlings’. Napstablook mumbled about having recorded a tribute song they called “Mettatune” and offered to play it, but then retracted the offer in the same breath and just disappeared.  
  
With a heavy heart Undyne watched some of the resorts employees sprinkle some of Asgore’s dust into the fountain and then they all went on through the Core. A few Monsters had been critically injured here, but none had died.  
  
At this point, only Asgore’s final farewell was left.

***  
  
Only Undyne and a few smaller monsters like bugs and birds that were capable of flight stepped into the middle of the throne room. The rest kept close to the walls or stood in the hallway. It wasn’t ideal, but nobody wanted Asgore’s beloved flower-bed to get completely trampled.  
  
First Undyne strew the rest of Toriel’s dust on her veiled throne. Then she gathered what was left in Asgore’s urn in both hands and let the monsters around her take some of it as well.  
  
And with the last bits of his dust scattered among the golden flowers that he had always cared for so much, she felt as if everything that had once been inside of her and had defined her had left, too.  
  
Dissolved, like the ash he had become.


	4. Hold on

Water was rushing all around them. It came from above and below, from left and right. It should be rising until there was no air left, but it didn't. Undyne couldn't see where it disappeared to. It just fell into endless blackness. Her feet were stuck within it. She couldn't see them.   
But she could see _her_. Alphys was right in front of her. There and not there at the same time. Like only her mind knew she was, and everything outside of it didn't. Her vision saw something that hadn't been told it existed. Somehow she felt unable to look at Alphys' face, yet still recognised that her expression was so incredibly sad. Something was wrong about her features. She imagined them to be normal, but her eye could not see. One moment everything was in focus, then all detail got lost. It vanished behind noise. It fell off of her like trickling sand. But it was grey. It mingled with the water.   
  
Still, she could see her standing there. Far away for one heartbeat and so close after the next. She looked distraught. And so pale. Undyne clutched her hands in hers. Alphys’ fingers were wizened like their skin had been exposed to water for too long. She didn’t care, she just wanted to keep her in her arms, tell her to _“Hold on”_ with a kiss and drown in the embrace.   
  
But none of that happened and suddenly she was gripping nothing. Alphys wasn’t there anymore, instead there was just the deafening sound of a roaring waterfall.   
  
Then there was someone else in a distance where the water couldn't reach. The figure stood in the dark with it’s back towards her.  
  
“Papyrus?” she heard herself ask and then gasped, when he - no, only his head - turned around to her. It felt like she was stumbling backwards, but she couldn’t feel her body. His skull was cracked.  
  
“I’m sorry.”   
  
She wanted to say it over and over. When he tilted his head his face came rushing towards her and she immediately pressed her eye shut. There was the sound of something snapping. She didn’t want to look anymore. She couldn’t breathe. Everything was black and what followed was only silence.   
  
_“Undyne. Stay determined,”_ a low familiar voice suddenly echoed in her head.   
  
No. She shook her head.   
  
_“Stay determined.”_  
  
She felt her eye burn and nodded. Consciousness slowly crept back into her body and the dream faded.   
  
  
It was one of those days where she woke up and her chest felt tight and desperate thoughts like “How can we go on”, “What am I supposed to do” and “I failed everyone” swirled through her mind, before they plunged into the pit of her stomach.  
  
Undyne brushed a hand over her cheek and felt a short flicker of anger at herself when she found it wet. But that flicker was snuffed out after nothing more than a heartbeat and got replaced by indifference and a dull ache in her soul that never went away.  
  
Sighing silently her shoulders sagged and for a moment she just stared blankly, eye not focused on anything. Then Undyne sat up straight, forcing her attention back to what was before her. She was still sitting at his her desk, stacks of paper before her. Some were applications for the Royal Guard, some were reports, some statistics. Scattered in between were her own notes regarding various matters. She needed to sort through this stuff. Undyne couldn’t remember where she had left off, before falling asleep. She looked down at whatever paper was in front of her, when suddenly there was a knock at the door. Undyne took another deep breath that heaved her body, before she responded with a “Come in” to whoever was waiting outside of the room.  
  
RG1 and RG2 entered and both stopped right at the door. While RG2 just stood quietly RG1 fidgeted nervously for a few seconds and then turned to hastily close the door behind them, as if he just remembered that was something he should do. Or could do to prolong having to speak. Undyne felt a sinking feeling in her guts at that behaviour. It basically screamed of bad news.   
  
“What is it?” she asked quietly when the awkward silence continued and she figured they might wait for her to allow them to speak or something.  
  
RG1 looked at his companion as if he expected him to speak up, but of course he stayed stubbornly quiet. For some odd reason Undyne felt as if she could see him sweating even though he was clad in full armor.  
  
“Boss, um, Captain, no, uh … King Undyne?”  
  
RG2 quickly bumped his shoulder “Bro …”

  
RG1 made a sound, something between a gasp and a groan. “Uuuumgh, I’m sorry - Queen Undyne!”  
  
Undyne just looked at them patiently (tiredly). Patient because she had no energy to be anything but.  
  
“Undyne’s still enough, you know”, she offered. Being titled Queen felt just _really_, really wrong. Especially since she had rejected to be crowned.  
  
“Like… another Monster fell down.”  
  
That sinking feeling hit rock bottom and the pain stabbed coldly into her stomach. Yet she managed to keep a straight face and nodded slowly. Then she slowly exhaled a breath.  
  
“... Who is it?”  
  
“A reptile-like Monster from Snowdin … Left a spouse, daughter and a younger child.”  
  
Undyne numbly nodded again and stood. The sound of the chair scraping against the wooden floor grated uncomfortably in her ears.  
  
“Please report back to the sentries in Snowdin that I’ll be on my way to meet the family.”   
  
RG2 made a move to leave, but RG1 remained standing and looking at her. She was suddenly very aware of a stare that must eye her very closely, even though she could not see his face under his helmet.  
  
“Um… Undyne, like … you like really don’t look so good.”  
  
The Undyne from just a few weeks ago would probably have taken playful offense to such an accusation and responded loud, exaggerated and with a noogie in a headlock at the very least. The Undyne from today felt inclined to just shrug and say nothing, because she knew it was true, but it wasn’t like pointing it out would enable her to just change that.  
  
“Don’t worry about me,” was what she answered instead.   
  
“Like, do you need anything?” RG1 continued as if she hadn’t.   
  
Now even RG2 felt the need to say something: “...You eating alright?”  
  
Undyne couldn’t help but grimace a bit, hoping that accompanying it with an eye-roll would help disguise that she felt a little caught.   
  
“Oh my god. Listen, punks.”   
  
Walking towards the two of them (or rather towards the door) she threw her arms around both of their necks and held them in a non-committing double-headlock for just a moment.  
  
“I can take care of myself, alright?”  
  
She let go, patted them on their backs and left the room. The two guards hurried after her.  
  
“You ready to go and do what I told you now?” she asked while closing the door and they hastily saluted and scurried down the hall.  
  
Undyne sighed and deflated a little.   
  
RG2 wasn’t wrong. She couldn’t deny that proper meal-times were something she rather neglected these days. And she knew it was stupid, because everyone needed her at full energy. At full capacity. But she struggled with it. Not the actual eating part - though she rarely ever felt hungry anymore - but all the actions involved to get to something she could eat.  
  
She didn’t want to cook.   
  
She didn’t want to go buy groceries.  
  
She also didn’t want to go to Grillby’s.   
  
Apart from all the haunting memories attached to each option, they were… so normal. Buying and cooking or getting dinner at Grillby’s, that was normal everyday stuff. Mundane. How are you supposed to go back to doing normal things, when things aren’t normal? Everything was far from being normal. How could you go back and continue to do the same things you did before, when things just aren’t the same?   
  
How could that ever be fair towards everyone lost. Pretending that things could be the way they were before… without them. As if their absence didn’t matter. As if their presence had never mattered.   
  
She didn’t want to cook and be reminded of the empty space where Papyrus should have been. She didn’t want to go to Grillby’s and see everyone around her carrying worn faces, while Sans was there and pretended everything was normal. She didn’t want to do mundane grocery shopping and feel wrong and disgusting about just continuing life like she used to, when others couldn’t.  
  
Undyne knew thinking like this was irrational and damaging even. But at this point she just couldn’t help it.   
  
She went into the bathroom to wash her face with cold water and brushed her hair while frowning at herself in the mirror. She dreaded going to that family. She dreaded seeing broken faces and trying to comfort them with hollow phrases.   
  
It had been two weeks and this was the third Monster to fall down since then. The first had been that Whimsun from the Ruins. Then the Froggit who had lost all of it's siblings. Those two… while still terrible, it hadn't been completely unexpected. That those directly affected by the murders of that human were at a high risk this shortly after had to be expected. This mother from Snowdin, though? Her description didn't ring a bell. Or maybe Undyne had a dreadful suspicion of whose mother this Monster was, but knew of no connection to the wrongdoings of the human. This was bad. It meant that the general mental state of the population was getting worse instead of better. It meant that her efforts of giving them hope, of being present and someone they could talk to, had been futile.   
  
Because she wasn't Asgore.   
  
Undyne lowered her gaze to the sink, giving way under the stare from the mirror that was so full of judgement.   
  
He had always been better at this. She could visualize it so clearly. His somber face as he gave his condolences. He'd bow down and offer his massive hand for people to hold onto if they so wished. He'd get a little pot and some little cups from god knows where under his cloak and offer them tea. They'd feel comforted by his gentle presence and low rumbling voice, by him just being there and listen to them weeping. And they'd feel like maybe, eventually, it was going to be... not okay but more okay than they currently felt. Because they had a good king that cared so much and when he had to go he’d leave them with flowers from his garden.   
  
Undyne supposed she couldn't do this and have it feel genuine, even when it actually was.   
  
Because she wasn't Asgore.   
  
She was Undyne, loud and rude and angry Captain Undyne, whose methods in dealing with things consisted mainly of throwing spears, suplexing obstacles, wrestling invites or suggesting a workout to fight against the bad thoughts. Tough and bold Undyne who claimed to eat rocks and backpedaled at lightning speeds whenever she expressed something and realised it wasn't conforming to the image she usually put up of herself.   
  
This person sounded like a stranger to her today. Like some immature rookie who had chosen the wrong priorities and payed the highest price for their stupidity.   
  
Sighing she looked back up at her face in the mirror and brushed the hair that fell in front of her eye-patch back into her ponytail. With one last glare at herself she went out of the bathroom and got the purple cloak that had been made for her. It had been a compromise she was willing to make. Even without officially taking the Royal Title she knew, as their new leader, people still regarded her as such now. Old habits and the like.   
  
As she took one last glance around the entrance area, her eye fell upon something in the corner. Hesitantly Undyne took her phone out and went towards it. She stored the vase with the golden flowers in her dimensional box.  
  
***  
  
After she arrived in Snowdin, Lesser Dog accompanied her to the house of the family. She was greeted by a pale olive-green lizard Monster with large, oddly opaque glasses that hid their eyes. Undyne recognised them as the local librarian. Behind them in the living room she saw two children sitting on a couch. The taller of the two was a similar, more saturated green color and looked directly at her. The yellow-colored sibling next to them sat slumped and stared at the floor.   
  
Her heart grew heavy and wrenched with guilt. Just like she had feared. It was the kid she caught when they fell off the bridge.   
  
Undyne quickly tore her eyes off the young Monster, back to their parent. Bowing her head she offered her condolences and couldn’t help but feel like words were meaningless. Maybe the librarian felt the same way. They just nodded and she couldn’t even see if they were actually looking at her.  
  
“Do you want to see her?”  
  
Undyne kept herself from immediately shaking her head and slowly straightened herself up again.  
  
“I’m not here for confirmation and I don’t want to intrude. I just…” she faltered for a moment, trying to find the words and put them into a formal enough language. “If there’s anything I could do for you and your children... if you need anything, I want you to know that you can come to me. I’m here to help. Or get you help.”   
  
Saying this left a bitter taste on her tongue. It was so obligatory and hollow. An offer to appreciate, but to never take up. She knew she wouldn’t, if their roles were reserved. What was there to ask or to do, when all you wanted was to get something - someone - back, that you couldn’t. And whatever material help you could ask for, you also wouldn’t, because you were either too polite or too prideful.   
  
The librarian nodded again, but also shrugged at the same time, the latter seeming a little involuntary, but even more honest for it. A part of her wanted to suggest they yell at her, or if they wanted to punch something she could take a hit, too. But she figured it probably wasn’t appropriate. Neither for her to make that suggestion, nor for them to act on it.  
  
“I don’t know,” they quietly started and sounded very tired “maybe she _would_ appreciate it if you visited her, Your Majesty.”  
  
Undyne cringed inwardly at both the title and the answer. It didn’t made her insides curl as much as “Queen” did, but it still felt like it didn’t belong to her. Like they weren’t really talking to her. She knew she had to get used to it, though.  
She had a suspicion that the idea of her seeing their fallen beloved was them still hoping that something could wake her up again. She couldn’t blame them. Keeping her expression guarded, she nodded.   
  
The librarian crossed the living-room and led Undyne to a door. The child which she assumed to be the daughter also jumped off the couch and went after them. Monster Kid however didn’t follow. But when she took a glance over her shoulder she saw Lesser Dog approach them with a slow tail wag.   
  
The room was dark and now she definitely felt like an intruder. She didn’t really know what she was supposed to do now and what they expected of her. Should she say something to the fallen Monster like it could still hear her? Should she say some lame line about how she was sure she’d been a good mother - and in turn treat her like she was dust already? She wished she knew what Asgore had done in these situations.  
  
It didn’t help that the dim light through the curtains illuminated the unconscious Monster and it’s yellow scales just enough to remind her of Alphys. Her heart bled and she had to pay attention to her breathing to keep it even.  
  
The daughter came up beside her, crawled onto the bed and took one of her mother’s hands to hold it tightly.  
  
“You have a good, caring family”, was what Undyne settled for, looking back to the fallen Monster. It was as meaningless as anything else she could have said.   
  
She felt incredibly uncomfortable.   
  
“... Does she like flowers?” Undyne asked, turning her head slightly towards the other parent still standing in the doorway without directly looking at them.   
  
“I suppose so. They’re a rarity around Snowdin.”  
  
Glad that she could do at least something other than just standing and creepily looking at a lost mother Undyne pulled the flowers from her phone’s dimensional box. She gently placed the vase on the nightstand.   
  
“...Thank you.”  
  
Undyne turned back around to the librarian, preparing herself to tell them that she had to take her leave now. But she stopped herself when she saw that they were hanging their head low and wringing their hands.  
  
“Is… is there no way to bring her back… like the others?”  
  
Undyne stiffened. This was the question she had been afraid of ever since the first Monster had fallen down. And she immediately got that this question was probably why they had made her face their fallen beloved directly. They had hoped she’d feel too bad to deny them.   
  
She released a breath and hoped it didn’t sound too shaky. She had known someone was gonna ask this sooner or later. She didn’t feel any more prepared now.  
  
“I am very sorry… but I’m afraid there isn’t. From what we understood of… Dr. Alphys research notes, the substance she used to reanimate the fallen Monsters was gathered from the human Souls. And since those are gone, we can’t get any more…”   
  
“Oh.”   
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
Here she was, claiming they could come to her for help and the first thing they ask she had to tell them that she couldn’t do anything about it. Still, when they deflated Undyne selfishly hoped she wouldn’t need to argue this any further. Then there was a sniff that came from her left. The kid had curled around her mother’s arm.  
  
“This isn’t fair.”  
  
She knew the child’s soul was throbbing with pain. Her’s did too.  
  
“I know.”  
  
Lesser Dog was sitting on the couch with the young Monster Kid when she came out of the room again and it looked like it tried to play a card game with them. Cards lay splayed out in front of the two and it seemed to be the kid's turn. Lesser Dog hovered it's paw over their cards and picked the one Monster Kid nodded at. They didn't seem very into it but probably were still thankful for the distraction, if they didn't just try to humor her guard.   
  
Lesser Dog noticed that she was ready to leave and gave a appreciative bark to Monster Kid. Then it stuffed the cards into the front of it's armor and returned to her side. She gave it a pat on the head and it craned it's neck happily.   
  
Monster Kid still avoided to look at her and turned to the side, drawing their legs up onto the couch. Undyne understood that they must be disappointed in her.  
  
She could have told them that she was too, but it probably didn't matter.   
  
After she had again reiterated to the librarian that they could contact her if they needed anything and was back "outside" in Snowdin she felt like she could finally breathe for the first time since she had stepped a foot in their house.   
  
On her way back to New Home Undyne’s mind swam with variations of how she could have acted differently towards the family. Things she could have said but didn’t thought of in the moment. If she should have given the poor daughter a squeeze of the shoulder. If she should have tried to talk to Monster Kid. How they perceived how she had treated them. She hoped she didn’t make them feel like an inconvenience to her. She hoped she didn’t made them feel worse. She hoped offering flowers hadn’t made them feel mocked.   
  
Undyne shut the door behind her, got out of the cloak and just flung it over the staircase railing. Lifting her hands she rubbed her face and then just breathed into her palms for a few seconds.  
  
With a drained sigh she let her arms and shoulders fall back down and stared forward, not focusing her eye. She should get back to mapping out a training plan for the new recruits.   
  
But… wait. Why did it smell like food?   
  
Undyne looked to her left where the living room and adjacent kitchen was and a paper bag on the dining table caught her eye.   
  
As she approached it she could pretty much already tell what was inside of it and felt a pang in her heart. There was a note attached to it. Scrawled onto the little piece of paper were two words in two very different handwriting styles.   
  
_‘Eat._  
_please’_  
  
Undyne pulled two glamburgers out of the bag and had to press her lips tightly together for a moment. No, she wasn’t going to get emotional about this sweet gesture of two dorks that apparently didn’t listen to her.   
  
“...Ugh, fine”, Undyne mumbled with an annoyed tone that wasn’t even convincing to herself. Good thing the note didn’t have ears.   
  
When she sat down and started eating she didn't feel as heavy as she did a few minutes ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, my buffer of finished chapters ends here. I really can't make any estimates as to when I can get out the next chapter.  
You can follow me on tumblr (https://khalliys.tumblr.com/), however, if you'd like to see some visual extras to this story. Over there, every chapter is posted with an exrta illustration. And I just generally draw Undertale when I find the time.


	5. Don't Knock On The Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Undyne continues to deal with everything and everyone and all is just fine with a certain skeleton.

There was no noise other than the crunching of snow beneath her boots. 

Every area of the Underground had its own sound that distinguished it from another. There was the constant buzzing of the CORE, the low rumble of Hotland, the howling winds and bubbling streams of Waterfall, and there was the silence of Snowdin Forest. It was a different kind of silence from an empty room. Even when you did nothing more than breathing it still had an echo. Every other place in the Underground still produced an echo. But here any reverberation got swallowed by the trees and muffled by the snow.

It was something that used to unnerve Undyne on the rare occasions she came here in the past, but now, as she was walking towards the door to the Ruins, she found a deep appreciation for it. Because it even made her own thoughts sound quieter. And when she shortly stopped at Doggo’s guard post, as well as Papyrus’ cardboard construct and gave a respectful salute with a bowed head to each, the forest’s silence blanketed her mental noise and allowed her not to listen.

Undyne also made a stop at Sans’ sentry station which was just as abandoned, though not for the same reasons. She checked it’s state half-heartedly and noted that only one empty jar of mustard was left inside. It was obvious he didn’t use it anymore and that was all she needed to know. They could remove it during the next days and replace it with a bigger one more suitable for her two guards who had requested to be stationed in Snowdin Forest. 

RG1 and RG2 had asked for the transfer shortly after Undyne had announced that she would relocate to the Ruins. Which just made more sense, considering that all the humans that had fallen into the Underground thus far had entered through the Ruins. Chances where the next one would as well. And <strike>if</strike> when that time came, Undyne wanted to be the first and last Monster they encountered. They wouldn’t get the opportunity to hurt or endanger anyone else ever again. 

So, for the last couple weeks she had been very occupied with organizing and preparing for her move. With everything she'd take along in her dimensional box, the moving itself had been of no concern to her. What had left her busy had been announcing it to the Underground, dealing with some concerned Monsters, recruiting new guards to employ in New Home and finding capable hands that would take care of Asgore's flowers.

For the latter, Monsters without hands, but a very capable water tanks had been found with two of Woshua’s siblings.

As for the Royal Guard, some mercenaries that had been hurt in the CORE were the first to apply after their recovery. Knight Knight and Madjick were now deployed at the barrier, and a Whimsalot and two Final Froggits were the first three guards for the Capitol. There had also been an Astigmatism in the mix, but while it certainly knew how to fight, it’s attitude still needed some work. 

Knowing that Waterfall was completely unguarded, and that Hotland would be too without RG1 and RG2, also caused Undyne some stress, but replacements for herself and two of her most seasoned warriors just weren’t found so easily. 

It wasn’t that she lacked applicants. Actually there were quite a few now and with every passing week more Monsters found the courage to come to her, but pretty much all of them had no combat experience. They still required a lot of training as well as education on public assistance work and keeping of order.

Some cases just didn’t work out. 

There had been Aaron, for example, who proposed an arm wrestling match to enter the Royal Guard. But when she reminded him that a human would probably not waste any time with a flexing contest, he became sweaty and twitchy and excused himself. 

The most bizarre application however had been Tsunderplane. The Monster, who, to her knowledge, was one of Napstablook's ghost cousins and inhabited a plane of all things, acted passive aggressive and like they didn’t actually want to join the Royal Guard throughout. When they called her a “Baka” at one point Undyne kind of had an epiphany and then - then their topic of discussion suddenly changed to anime. Or rather, Undyne discreetly questioned Tsunderplane’s taste in anime and then learned that Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2 existed. 

As Tsunderplane had started rambling, Undyne suddenly found it very hard to focus on what they were saying. Many unbidden thoughts came to drag her away and all that really reached her was Tsunderplane calling her an idiot again - now in common language - after what couldn't have been more than a minute. Obviously offended by her state of distraction the Monster had turned up their nose and left. 

And Undyne had sat back and perplexity slowly gave way to an ache that felt like it was eating her from inside out. It had been like getting reminded of a thorn stuck in your foot. It hurt with every step when you thought about it, and it still hurt the same when you didn't thought about it. You just didn't notice so much. You didn't until you did and then you couldn't stop.

She wondered why Alphys had never told her about that sequel.  
She wondered what Alphys had thought about it.  
She wondered if Alphys maybe hadn't known about it.   
She wondered how she came to discuss anime of all things with a potential recruit.   
She wondered if Tsunderplane and Alphys had known each other.  
She wondered if she could ever stomach to watch anime again.  
She wondered if all these reminders would ever stop hurting so much.  
She wondered if she would ever want them to. 

After walking down that long path through Snowdin Forest that left anyone with too much time in their thoughts, Undyne finally reached the door to the Ruins. She took one last breath of cold air and moved from one silence into the next.

When Undyne walked up the stairs from the corridor to the living quarters, she noticed a weird smell. It didn't quite mix well with the stale air and scent of ancients stone walls and old furniture. She frowned and paused momentarily, before she took the last step into Asgore's old home. Which was such an eerily perfect copy to New Home that it felt almost disturbing to see everything so colourful. As if New Home was stuck in an old black and white VHS tape, when it should be the other way around. Because New Home was the remake.

But Undyne pushed these thoughts aside, immediately drawn to the living room, because of the sight that greeted her from there.

Her frown deepened as she surveyed dozens of empty ketchup bottles that were strewn across the floor and stacked into pyramids of no more than three bottles and placed on every dining room chair.

The armchair in front of the fireplace however, was taken by a sleeping skeleton. At least the closed eyes made it look like it was sleeping. Undyne felt her shoulders tense slightly.

"Sans."

Three heartbeats passed.

"sup."

He didn't visibly react, only audibly. Due to the fact that his mouth was immobile while speaking, she might as well considered that she was just hearing things. But she responded anyway.

"... What are you doing here."

Sans finally opened an eye.

"waiting."

Undyne frowned some more. Her facial expression must have gone through all existing variations of frown within the span of five minutes or less.

"Waiting for what."

The skeleton closed his eyes again and when he didn't respond immediately Undyne felt some sense of dread beginning to pool in her gut. 

But then Sans just stretched his arms out in front of him, linked his boney fingers together and cracked them thoroughly.

"breakfast."

Undyne let out a breath and she hoped that it sounded properly exasperated.

"It's 12 pm."

"yup. 21 and a half hours left to go and that means it's now brunch time, thanks for reminding."

He reached back into his hood, pulled out another ketchup bottle and took a big swig.

Undyne just stared at him, still processing the ridiculousness of the scene she just walked into and trying her damn hardest to not turn him green and chuck all the bottles in this (and probably the next) room at him. Instead she surveyed Sans' half assed attempts at... art probably?

"Why."

"reaching the table was too much effort-"

"No. I mean, why are you here. What is this and how long has it been going?"

"pretty sure nothing's going here, i'm seated and they don't have legs."

He vaguely waved at the bottles. Undyne glared at Sans. Sans shrugged.

"well, i saw a great business opportunity. place is currently not claimed or occupied, so i might as well rent it out."

".….You're trying to rent out Asgore's old home."

"yup."

She gestured around the room.

"Like this."

"ketchun' on really fast."

"And you're waiting for any potential renter to just come by."

"and you did. for you it'll be only 5,000 g per week."

"No."

"ok, i'll be extra generous. 50,000 g per month."

"Sans, STOP it", she snarled at him. 

The frustration hurt inside her throat. It greatly annoyed her that he just continued to be like this - goofing around and pretending that there was no difference between now and five weeks ago. As if Papyrus wasn't gone. 

Maybe that was unfair, maybe that was his way of coping, because judging by the state of this room he definitely had some coping to do. Then again, this was probably no different to how his room in Snowdin had always looked and definitely still looked. But she really just couldn't bear his fake antics right now. 

And he did in fact stop them. Sans just went back to nursing his ketchup bottle and scrolled through his phone. 

Undyne turned away and took a look at the kitchen. As expected, there were more ketchup bottles. On the counter tops. In the sink. On the stove. In the stove. On the fridge. She opened the fridge and found nothing but a single bar of chocolate inside. 

Undyne closed the door and drew a hand down her face, staring at the refrigerator for far too long without actually seeing it. Her mind supplied her with a mental note that she would need to buy trash bags. There probably weren't any in the house, apart from the one sitting in front of the fireplace. Undyne breathed through her teeth, grinding them way too hard.

She stepped back into the living room where Sans appeared to have gone back to sleeping. But if Undyne knew one thing about Papyrus’ brother then that this didn’t mean he wasn’t listening.

"I will in fact occupy this place now," she informed him and after a short pause that hopefully didn't betray the untruthfulness of her next statement added: "I don't care where you go."

There was no movement, but of course he still answered.

"ok. i'll just stay right here then, 'cause anything else would mean i have to get up."

Undyne took another look around the room until her eye came to rest upon the skeleton again. He looked really small in that huge arm chair. She sighed and started walking towards the hallway.

"Fine then."

With this house and the house in New Home being an almost perfect copy of one another, Undyne expected to find the same room arrangements and was proven right when she at first glanced into the middle room. This one had been locked in New Home with a “Under Renovations” sign in front of it. It had been Queen Toriel’s room and it was clear that this held true for this case, too. And so Undyne retreated for the same reasons she hadn’t chosen Asgore’s room in New Home. 

This room still felt… lived in. A diary on the desk was opened to the latest page, bedsheets someone had slept in not long ago, a drawer probably still full of socks. She couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that she was intruding into the former queen’s space. 

Undyne went to the last room at the end of the hall and didn’t know if she should find it ironic or just tragic that there hung another “Under Renovations” sign on the door. It was also locked, although… that hadn’t been a hindrance for her back in New Home, either. She could repair that frame later. 

All the furniture inside was in the same places, but the desk was empty, the bed covered with a white sheet and all the drawers and the wardrobe were empty. Undyne pulled the sheet off the bed and sat on it. 

This was okay. While sleeping in a bed her old mentor had just used the night before, and had planned on sleeping in again the next, would have been plain creepy, taking over a room that he had moved out of about a century ago was different. Maybe it even felt a little bit… comforting. Knowing that he had left it behind voluntarily and that, during that time… he had been happy. It was definitely a very different atmosphere from the old queen’s room in New Home.

After Undyne had taken her stuff out of the dimensional box, sorted her clothes into the wardrobe and placed a bunch of papers on the desk, she went back into the hallway. Surprisingly enough, when she peeked into the living room, Sans was still there, still sleeping. She shook her head silently and left through the front door. 

The large dead tree was still as eerie as the first time she had seen it, and she wondered how it might have looked during the days Asgore had lived here.

Undyne found her way to the little balcony that oversaw the Ruins, some old steps leading down into the dilapidated city. It wasn’t as big as the Capitol, but still big enough to feel a sense of anger that the old queen had deprived her former citizens of all that space. From a previous stroll through these streets, and some talk to the few residents, she knew that most of these old buildings were empty. Many had fallen into disrepair and were unsave to be in. The locals had a good reason to call this place Ruins. 

And apparently Queen Toriel had just… not cared. Learning that the former queen of the Underground had not only trapped other Monsters alongside her inside the Ruins, but abandoned them, too, it had made her really angry. Undyne still felt that hot ire in her chest just thinking about it. A Froggit and a Whimsun told her how Monsters had mostly felt intimidated by the former queen and that Toriel used to keep interactions cool and to a minimum. The poor souls were also quite intimidated by her now, because of her loud reaction. Realising who had let all the previous humans just pass through didn't make it better. At all. 

But being angry about that also didn’t. It was no use. Not anymore. The old queen was dead. Just like the king. Just like, just like… …. Too many innocent souls. 

Undyne leaned on the balustrade and sighed, massaging her jaw. She was developing a bad habit of constantly setting her jaw too tight. She needed to stop doing that. 

She also needed to focus on the things she could do now. What they all could do now. Overcrowding was still a problem in the Capitol, but now, with all this space available, they could do something about that. Rebuilding “Old Home”... maybe a project as big as this was what everyone needed right now. A task, a purpose. A distraction that kept them busy for a while. Something to look forward to, where the time it would take was measurable and the progress something one could observe all the way through the process. 

Not something as impalpable and gruelling and riddled with so much uncertainty like waiting for another human. And while combat training might be a good distraction for some Monsters, it wasn’t suitable for all or even many. Most of her new recruits' motivations lay somewhere between anger, fear and even survivors-guilt. She could empathise with them all too well, but she knew those weren’t… sustainable. Not in the long term. Not for a good kind of Hope.

But maybe working together and being able to actually mend something that was broken was what they all needed. A healing kind of Hope. 

At the very least, it was a nice metaphor. 


	6. Too Much To Chew On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Undyne has zero competence in providing emotional support, but her elbows are as dangerous as ever.

Spears shot up from the ground like a wall. 

A round Monster almost stumbled over its feet, trying to avoid bumping into the electric blue barrier with it's back, while also dodging another spear that was slashing at it from the front. It hastily summoned a couple of triple orbs at it's attacker, who evaded them with a jump to the side. The cornered Monster released another flurry of bullets in her direction and attempted to bring more distance between them, but she wouldn't let it.

Astigmatism put all its effort into staying out of reach of the spear in her hand and attacking her at the same time, but because she was much faster and more agile, it constantly failed at both.

Undyne felt like a cat going after a mouse, or more specifically… like a human going after a Monster. 

One could probably call that being fully immersed in a role. But even after months of employing this training method, she still felt disgust at herself for playing 'a human'. No matter how much she considered it to be more effective than just fighting the Monster way. 

Because humans didn't. 

Undyne let herself take a couple of hits to inch even closer and maybe because she felt like she should. It was apparent in the way the bullets stung that Astigmatism was very frustrated by now. It's switching between defending and charging became increasingly uncoordinated and rash, which only led to more stumbling and it getting even more worked up. 

Undyne swung her spear again. Her opponent chose the same moment to blast another round of triple orbs in her direction. She used the momentum to turn out of the line of fire instead.

Her hair whipped around. And then, completely unexpected, she felt hands grabbing and tugging it forcefully. Pain shot from her scalp through her body like an electric shock and the warrior's defense reaction was immediate. 

She rammed her elbow right into Astigmatism’s face.

Her recruit fell to the ground with a yelp and Undyne turned, the burning sensation at the base of her ponytail fueling an explosive kind of fury.

"YOU!"

The Monster flinched before her looming figure, trying to rub it's head under the protective helmet it was wearing.

"Don't… pick on me", it mumbled while shuffling backwards.

Undyne growled, but allowed herself the second to acknowledge that her trainee was utterly floored and holding its head in pain. That already did enough to snuff out a considerable amount of anger. Instead she ground her teeth together to refrain from yelling at the recruit for using such a dishonorable and also grossly negligent way of attacking. She glanced to the side where the other five recruits of her current training session waited. Or rather huddled. They looked sympathetically uncomfortable, as if they all had just been caught doing something very unwise and dumb.

Undyne breathed out slowly, retaking control of her temper. 

“You know what? Right. You are right. Humans don’t bother to fight fair, we'd be stupid to try. There's no place for honor in a life and death scenario.”

Those words tasted bitter, like chewing on something while knowing it was poisonous. After all, it had been her own stupid pride that had resulted in her losing the only important battle she had ever tried to fight. 

Emphasis on tried, because in reality all she had managed to do was to chase after a cowardly murderer who had mocked her from the very beginning. Only fleeing and pretending to be oh so scared, even though at this point she had known just too well what they were capable of.

Astigmatism peeked at Undyne through a narrow eye, undoubtedly not trusting her shift in demeanor. 

"But if you're gonna fight dirty at least be SMART about it, you fool! If it hadn't been for that visor you'd be BLIND now, at the very least!"

It drew its shoulders up again. “I get it, I get it.”

Undyne leaned forward “Do you?” and extended a hand towards her trainee. 

Again Astigmatism considered her for two more eye-blinks, but then it took her hand. “Yes, Captain!”

She helped the Monster back onto its feet and proceeded to tap a knuckle against its dented helmet. 

"Good. Take an energy bar and then demonstrate being smart to me with your training partner. BUT let me just say ONE THING." 

Undyne's eye scanned back to the other recruits who had just relaxed their postures and now snapped to attention again. 

"As for your task in the Royal Guard - we don't EVER use such foul tactics when a confrontation with a fellow habitant is unavoidable. I won't have anyone not able to treat others with decency be a member of my guard. Am I being clear?!" 

Everyone hastily saluted and Astigmatism scurried to join them, while unsuccessfully trying to get off the helmet. 

***

After she had dismissed her trainees for the day and was on her way back to Old Home, Undyne for some reason felt weirdly aware of the weight of her ponytail, and how it swayed with every step she took. 

When she got to the western end of Waterfall she stopped and reached up. With a sigh she removed the cap that hid the hair on the top of her head. She had it charmed in a way that made it imitate the look of her skin and concealed her hair perfectly, when she wore it in a tight ponytail. The ponytail needed to stick out however, because it wouldn't work with the volume of all of her hair up without looking ridiculous. 

Her long hair had always been some kind of trade mark to her, epicly windswept in the drafty air of Waterfall. Now it felt like an inconvenience (and honestly kinda had before too - on some occasions - hence the cap), a weak point and keeping it that way seemed more vain and unreasonable the more she kept thinking about it. 

Undyne stored the cap in her dimensional box and let her hair down for a moment, to comb her fingers through it. Every knot and tangle only reminded her of the sensation of being pulled by her hair.

She would have to do something about it. She couldn’t afford any vulnerability.

With her ponytail fixed Undyne started walking again, soon engulfed by the perpetual fog that was caused by the sudden climate-shift between Waterfall and Snowdin.

Her heart stumbled and clenched for a moment when she caught the outline of somebody in the mist. She had to stop again and shivered involuntarily. But the figure was too small.

“...San...”

Before Undyne could even finish saying his name she saw the shadow jolting and heard a little gasp. It moved quickly - away she assumed - but then it tumbled with a dull “_oompf_”. 

Undyne’s tense posture slacked a little. Slowly she approached the figure that turned out to be a familiar yellow-scaled monster child.

“Are you alright?”, she asked, going down on one knee and moved her hand tentatively towards Monster Kid, who was currently occupied with trying to shake the snow out of their face. But upon hearing her voice they froze and stared up at her wide-eyed. 

With surprising speed they scrambled back onto their feet and took several steps back. They turned their head away and avoided looking at her. Just like they had been doing for the past four months. It still felt like a punch to her gut every time. 

A well deserved one.

“It’s cool, you don’t need to help me,” they said flatly and looked down at where their feet were stuck in the snow.

Undyne lowered her hand to her knee, held it there for a moment, then balled it into a fist to push herself back up again.

“I see. You’re a pretty tough punk.”

She saw their facial features strain a little at her comment. Memories of their mother’s funeral, two weeks after she had fallen down, crawled up to the back of her mind unbidden. Monster Kid had stood at the side of their remaining parent with their sister, both of them holding the jittery scowls of children trying too hard not to cry and failing at it.

She didn't want to listen to the little voice telling her that their mother’s death was a result of her incompetence and turned in the direction of Snowdin Town.

“So. You’re good, right?”

Yeah, they totally weren’t and Undyne wanted to smack herself for not choosing her words better. 

“Yup.”

“Okay. Take care.”

She started walking again and breathed out a long sigh when she deemed herself far away enough. That kid had all the right and reasons in the world to forever be angry at her. It was oka-

“YO, UNDYNE!” 

Startled, Undyne turned her head and saw Monster Kid running after her. They almost stumbled again but managed to keep upright when they stopped a few feet away. They wore that same watery frown again - 

and then it cracked. 

“Yo, I’m … I’m not t-tough.” They inhaled sharply. “I’m, I’m just a d-dumb pushover and… and…!!” 

Tears welled up in their eyes and they tried biting back a sob. “I’m really sorry!”

Undyne didn’t even notice that she had fully turned around and with what kind of horrified expression she now stared at the crying child.

“I know th-this is all my f-f-fault! I've… I’ve been so so ash-ashamed, because- because if it weren’t for me, or, or like ifyoujusthadn’th-helpedm-”

“No.” Something clicked in Undyne’s brain just then. She was on her knees and had her hands firmly on their narrow shoulders before the sobbing child could even look up. “No no no no, don’t think that. That’s not true-”

“BUT IT TOTALLY IS!!! I got you hurt and, AND THEN you couldn’t beat the human! If I’d just listened to you...”

Undyne desperately fumbled for words, for something to say that could immediately disperse this kid’s poisoned thoughts, but she could barely think through her own rising feeling of shame. _They had trusted her to handle this_. And it was disturbing how Monster Kid’s admission of guilt and regret hit way too close to home.

The child held their head lower and lower and if they had hands they would surely try to cover their face at this point.

“...if you hadn’t jumped after me... I’m sure you could have… like… beat them up, right then and there...” 

Trying to ignore the stab that wrenched like a knife in her stomach, Undyne just held their shoulders a little tighter. “Your life is more important.”

But they just shook their head violently. 

“NO!! It’s not more important than ALL of the others! Like King Asgore, or my … or my m-mom…”

And Undyne really just didn’t know what to do or say. She was bad at dealing with her own emotions at best, but trying to console an inconsolable child with growing self-resentment, stuck in a situation no child should ever be stuck in? She felt like the least qualified person in the whole Underground for that.

“Kid, listen to yourself. You can’t seriously think your mom would have been okay with you being dead.”

“But… if I just hadn’t followed that human…”

Loosening her grip she rubbed at the back of her neck with one hand and curled her fingers tightly around some wispy strands of hair that were too short to fit into her ponytail. 

“... It’s no use to get hung up on what ifs. All it does is make everything feel even worse.”

She knew them all. The _What if I hadn’t tried to give the human a fair chance_, the _What if I had been more ruthless_, and yes, the _What if I hadn’t sprained my ankle after jumping off a cliff_. And the _What if I had been quicker, could I have been quicker_ _when-, what if I had been more honest, would she-_ and it was no use. It only made you spiral downwards faster.

But Undyne didn’t tell them how much she could relate and how much she felt the same way. She wasn’t going to burden a child with that. “It’s okay, I hate myself, too” was certainly not an appropriate thing to say to anyone, especially not a Monster still in stripes. She had an exemplary function to fulfill after all. 

“...And it’s really not your fault that I failed the landing.”

Now Monster Kid looked back up at her, still sniffing and eyebrows drawn in what seemed to be disagreement. Undyne tried a very awkward version of an encouraging smile.

“Yeah! That little jump? I... include that in my daily morning routine. I should have managed it just fine… So... it’s no one’s fault but my own.”

“But …”, Monster Kid started again, but Undyne lifted her hand in a motion to stop them. 

“I’m not infallible. Neither was King Asgore. I too was so very sure that the human wouldn’t be able to get past him… but they did. And we can’t change it. We can’t go back."

No matter how much she wished for that reset button every day. No matter how much she actually _really_ could not come to terms with her own fallibility. 

"All we can do is... try to learn from what happend, so that we can make better decisions in the future. You didn’t recognise they were a human. You can’t be blamed for that. But it also won't happen to you again.”

Undyne knew what cold of a comfort that was. And how in the face of what had happened, it really didn't seem like any future decision could ever matter, because the worst had already come to pass. This kid had lost its mother. There was no consolation. 

And therefore her words did nothing. They might have stopped Monster Kid's objections, but they certainly still thought the same way and tears still kept rolling down their cheeks. They had averted their eyes again.

Undyne felt helpless. Did they need a hug? This wasn't something one could hug away, she was aware of that. She also wasn't someone close to them, they had specifically avoided her for months, so it might even make them uncomfortable and they had no arms, so-

"I wanna join the Royal Guard."

Undyne's train of thought immediately screeched to a halt. 

"_What?_" 

Monster Kid took a step back, snuffled heavily and licked over their snout in lack of a sleeved arm. Now they scowled at her as if they wanted to burn a hole through her forehead. 

"Yeah!! I wanna become a guard. I wanna be strong and not a burden." 

With that one hand still at the back of her neck Undyne was now tugging at her own hair. Why did this situation have to become even more _stressful_. 

"I'm sorry, but no. You're too young."

She braced for impact by staring back at them as sternly as possible. 

"Yo, I know that, but I wanna start training NOW… so I'll be ready when I'm old enough!" 

Monster Kid's eyes shimmered with tears and grave determination and Undyne felt trapped. She didn't want them to cry any more, she didn't want them to feel like a nuisance she was just trying to wave off, she didn't want to disappoint them and make them even more miserable. She had told their parent she'd be there to help, for goddamn's sake. 

But would this be right? It wouldn't be, would it? 

They continued, faltering a bit. "Like… Like, um… I heard King Asgore trained you too, when you were young… so… please." 

Undyne sucked in a deep breath and got back to her feet at the same time to cover up the noise. Though she didn't bother to hide the long exhale that released it. 

"Kid I…" another sigh. That wasn't a fair card they were playing. Also not really comparable. Her situation had been different and Asgore's, too. First and foremost, he'd had the time to indulge her. Looking back at it now she'd probably made a pretty good distraction for him. Kept him busy. 

“P-please let me…”

However, Undyne now in his position had already taken care of keeping herself and others busy and distracted. She had kept her duty as the Captain of the Royal Guard in addition to trying to fulfil Asgore's role. She'd made sure to have as little free time as possible. 

"I need to think about this."

Something defiant passed over Monster Kid's face and they opened their mouth in protest, but then their expression hardened and they glanced down. 

"Yeah, sure."

Undyne pressed her mouth into a thin line for a second, but went on. "There are things to consider." 

"Uh-huh."

Why did children have to be like this. Releasing a defeated sigh she rubbed two fingers down her left temple. She couldn’t just make a decision about this while being put on the spot like that.

When she had finished recruitment training earlier, there had been two hours to spare until she was needed at a meeting with construction workers and residents in the Ruins. Time Undyne had planned on spending with getting changed, going through some reports and a quick meal alongside. She had promised her old guards to keep track of the latter to stop them from mothering her so much. But it seemed like this situation required a change of plans.

"...How about we grab something from Grillby's and then discuss more? My treat."

Monster Kid looked up at her in surprise, although immediately hesitant. They kicked at the snow in front of them.

“You don’t need to do that. I’m sure you’re like... busy and such.”

Undyne shrugged.

“I know. I’m still offering it to you.”

When they continued to look conflicted and fidgeted with their feet Undyne recognised that maybe… their aloof behaviour had never been directed towards her. That it was directed at themselves. She put her hand on their head.

“You are not a burden.”

She couldn’t really see it from her point of view, but she felt a tiny shiver under her palm and heard them sniffing. Her shoulders stiffened slightly. It definitely hadn’t been her intention to make them cry again.

  
But they just snuffled once more and nodded. “Okay.” Disbelievingly, but it was better than nothing. “Thank you.”

***

Undyne hadn’t really been to Grillby’s just for food since the human had gone through the Underground. Her feelings about resuming life like before hadn’t changed. It had just gotten the tiniest bit easier to be rational about it. She had visited the restaurant to check up on Grillby and make sure he had everything he needed in the past, though (and of course hadn’t been let go without taking food along then).

When she opened the door she saw that the establishment was pretty empty.

“Oh, your majesty!”

The Monster who immediately greeted her from their seat was a venus flytrap kind of type towards whom Undyne inclined her head respectfully. In the booth next to the door sat a lone bunny with their face down on the table. Right in front of the counter, with his back towards her… was of course Sans.

“Any interesting news regarding Home’s reconstruction?”

Undyne, who had been leveling a slightly concerned look at the local drunkard, was about to turn towards the talking Monster she knew was nicknamed Big Mouth, when the bunny shot up.

“Hhhhha! H-h-h-h-home! Will it have a bar? Or a d-d-d-disco! I’ll totally move there.”

She assumed she should feel some sort of relief that his life priorities still seemed to be the same as ever. As questionable as they might be. Her eye switched back to Big Mouth.

“I’ll be discussing progress with the workers later today. Facade repairs of the occupied buildings are coming along well. Most work is currently put into digging to connect the waterways and recycling material from the old buildings we had to tear down.”

“So it’s still a looong way to go.”

Undyne motioned for Monster Kid, who was awkwardly standing in the doorway, to follow her to the bar. 

“I know. Process is slow. Unfortunately there's only very limited access to electricity and what's there doesn't have much power.”

“Oh, right. Ah, I remember the times before the CORE provided us all with electricity.”

“Yeah… hooking the Ruins up to the CORE will be a whole 'nother business…” 

One she had been dreading for a number of reasons that she tried very hard not to think about until necessary.

"Right, without our Royal Scientist…" 

"Hey. Are… are there any… h-h-h-hot guys at work?”

Undyne, who just felt herself going rather stiff, almost jumped at the opportunity to change the subject and shot a look back towards the bunny. 

“You gotta see for yourself. I’m pretty sure they’d be grateful for someone to bring them lunch from Grillby’s.”

The bunny punched his fists down onto the table in front of him.

“I’ll do that! Sansy’s gotten so b-b-b-boring… always telling the same jokes…”

Said skeleton was currently taking a swig from a ketchup bottle.

“what. ya got a bone to pick with me?”

The bunny’s only response was a sigh and he put his chin back down onto the table.

Undyne took the chance to remove herself from the small talk and turned to Grillby.

“Hey Grillby. Everything alright here?”

“... ... ...Same as always.”

Undyne nodded slowly and panned her gaze over the empty seats at the bar and the booths behind. It must have been about noon, so she knew the dogs were on patrol and the other regulars probably at work, too. At least she hoped so.

“...Same faces as always, too?”

His response was a short nod. She couldn't refrain from also nodding again, though it was more to herself. She supposed that ‘same as always’ was good enough, even when it wasn’t really true. At least it meant no one had fallen down in Snowdin recently. 

Undyne lightly touched Monster Kid on the back of their head to get their attention, as they seemed to be lost in focusing on the wood grain of the counter and kept nudging one foot against the other heel to busy themselves.

“What should I get you?”

“Uhh… just fries.”

“Good. I’ll take the same.”

While Grillby went into the back room, Undyne took a sideway glance at Sans. She didn’t bother to ask him why he was currently here, or what kind of break he was on right now. He wasn’t doing his sentry job anymore - all she knew was that he still sold Hot Dogs in Hotland and also in Waterfall. 

Meanwhile Sans had turned to face Monster Kid and leaned in their direction.

“psst, hey kiddo. want some ketchup?”

Acting as if he was offering something illegal, he held one side of his hoody jacket open to reveal rows of ketchup packets that appeared to have been sewn into the fabric. Undyne rolled her eye and Monster Kid’s expression was bewildered at first, then changed to what could be considered mildly amused. 

“Uuuuuh, no, but thanks.”

Sans stuffed his hands back in his pockets and shrugged. His movements were accompanied by a plastic-y rustling noise.

“it makes for pretty good padding.”

The kid blinked and then they actually let out a little snort.

“Oh. Hehe, that… maybe could be useful??”

“if you’re ever in need of ketchup armor, i’ll give you a discount.”

Sans winked and Undyne decided there was no need for her to chime in. He had managed to make the somber child smile with just one nonsensical statement. That was a lot more than she had accomplished in 10 minutes of talking to them. 

Just then Grillby came back with their orders. 

“So… you have any preference for a place where we could eat and talk?”, she asked them while he put their fries into a paper bag and Undyne placed gold coins in front of the fire elemental. The young Monster just shrugged to the degree they were capable of, which had Sans doing another winky face at them.

“what, you can’t think of a cool place in snowdin?"

Undyne felt another little tug in her chest. Hearing him joking and making puns these days still made her uncomfortable. The silence that now followed a bad pun filled her with a sense of dread, when before it had been Papyrus, reacting with any sort of annoyed exclamation. It was almost like Sans was still waiting for it. And she found herself expecting it so much that she could almost hear it. But all that was left was anxiety inducing silence. 

Monster Kid looked between her and Sans a little helplessly, catching the mood. Sans was the first to break eye-contact from Undyne’s blank stare.

“wow. tough crowd.”

There was this invisible wall between him and her. Despite living in the same house, their only interactions - whether he was sitting in “his” armchair for hours on end, or she randomly passed by him somewhere in the Underground - were awkward non-conversations. Sans would continue his comedy with decreasing effort day by day, like he was waiting for everything to finally return back to how things used to be. Or maybe he was just waiting for her to snap. Sometimes Undyne wasn’t so sure. But she never gave him the annoyed groans or irritated chiding. She wasn’t Papyrus. She wasn’t gonna fill in for him. She could never do that. No one could ever replace Papyrus.

So all she could actually do was ignore it… or participate in the game.

"Just gave you the opportunity to call it a ‘chilly reaction’, but you missed it."

Sans didn’t look up again, just continued to nurse his bottle.

“heh, you caught me cold there.”

Undyne wasn’t sure if that was even an actual expression, but it didn’t matter.

“I caught you slacking off. Don’t bother Grillby all day and stop depleting his ketchup supply.”

Okay, maybe she did some chiding. But hey, it was still nicer than she could have been, if she'd had enough irate energy left for him.

“hey, i’m just consuming my salary. grillbyz and i have an arrangement here. i sell the hotdogs and since i don’t pay rent anymore, i choose edibles for compensation.”

Undyne stared at him for a few seconds, several sarcastic comments or honestly indignant responses to that flickering through her brain, but once she opened her mouth she found she did not care enough and immediately shut it again. She just huffed.

“You- … Okay, whatever. Good. Good for you.”

She grabbed their food and left the restaurant with a polite “have a nice day” towards no one specifically. Monster Kid scrambled after her. Since they hadn't voiced any suggestion, Undyne simply chose to head in the direction of the Ruins. She had to be there sooner than later anyway. 

When the two of them reached the bridge, Undyne decided this was as good a place as they could get to, if they wanted their fries to stay warm and be away from any prying ears. And on the plus side, this bridge actually had a damn safety rope. As she sat down at the edge, the hint of a frown passed across her face, as it occurred to her that choosing a bridge for this talk was kind of … hm, the right word wouldn’t come to her, but it’s taste was on the tip of her tongue. 

Monster Kid sat with their knees drawn back into their chest, so that they could just clamp the bag of fries between them and reach the food with their mouth. 

For a while they just ate in what really couldn’t be described as companionable silence, but she distracted herself from feeling awkward by putting her thoughts and the things she wanted to say in the right order. She hoped that the child had used the time to calm down enough as well.

“So,” Undyne began hesitantly, “do you still mean it? Royal Guard Training - is that really what you want?”

The young Monster nodded immediately and strongly, almost spilling their fries. “Yo… Of course.”

Undyne tried to keep her sigh quiet enough so that they wouldn’t recognize it as such and rubbed her temple. 

“You said you want to become strong and not be a burden. Being a Royal Guard isn’t just about being strong and let me stress this again, you are not a burden.”

She saw them draw their eyebrows together and stare daggers at the fries in disagreement.

“I am. I am such a weenie, you got hurt because I can barely even walk.”

Again she just wanted to respond that the only reason she got hurt was because she herself had been a boastful idiot, but shifting blame back and forth, trying to be the one who got to keep it, didn’t solve anything. 

“Listen, there is so much we have no control of. If everyone were in perfect control of anything… well, then that human wouldn’t even have gotten to the bridge, because my spears wouldn’t have missed them before. And it doesn’t matter if that was because my aim was off, or if there were things in the way I couldn’t account for, or if they were just too good at dodging. The end result is the same.”

She couldn’t help but make a face as she reached the last sentence and realised that this… definitely wasn’t as comforting a thing to hear as she intended it to be. Like, at all. And not _really _true on top of that. Undyne chewed on her bottom lip and decided it was better to return to the topic at hand, because she really just didn’t know how to comfort the kid in a successful way.

“How about this. I can train you, but I have a condition. And we also put that Royal Guard goal on the back burner for the time being. You don’t have to decide NOW what you want to do in a couple of years.”

They looked up at her and their face was quite hard to read, like they weren’t sure if they should be glad or disappointed about her final offer.

“What condition?”

“Well, obviously your parent has to give their permission.”

Their eyes immediately grew wide. 

"What?? N-no! Don't tell them, please!" 

"Of course not. YOU will." 

Monster Kid stared at her, mouth open, as if she had just demanded the most obviously preposterous thing. They let out a whine. "Noooo." 

But this was not something Undyne was going to argue about. She pointedly turned her head forward and bit into a frie.

“I will not teach you anything without your parent’s permission. It’s up to you to convince them that this is a good idea,” she said and didn’t look back at them. Whatever pleading face they were making, she wouldn't let herself be manipulated by it.

Eventually she just heard them grumble. “Fine.”

That’s when she mercifully turned her face back to them.

“...Thank you,” they muttered, as if they had just reminded themselves that it would be impolite to not show any gratefulness. Undyne wasn’t sure if they should really thank her yet, but gave a small nod.

“Sooo, like… if my pa agrees, when will you train me?”

They were no longer eating, even though she could see that their serving wasn’t empty yet. They just kind of fidgeted with their feet. Undyne took a moment to think about her schedule.

“I could probably make time on Sundays.”

“Only Sundays?”

Now they sounded disappointed. But Undyne had fully expected that.

“You know, I’m currently training a lot of people and on top of that I have a bunch of other duties and obligations to fulfil. And you also have school and school stuff to do.”

They grimaced at the latter part and Undyne responded with a head-tilt and sternly risen eyebrow that allowed no argument. They put their chin down on one knee sulkingly.

At this point Undyne decided that it was time to part from the kid, before the awkward - and certainly emotionally draining on both sides - encounter turned plain uncomfortable. She wasn’t qualified to deal with this child’s trauma, she wasn’t even sure if she wouldn’t regret agreeing to training them later at night, when she was staring at the ceiling and struggled to make her brain finally shut down, so that sleep could find her.

“Okay. So, now that we’ve discussed all this - I think you have a parent to convince. I have to head back now.”

Monster Kid let out a quiet sigh that she couldn’t discern the nature of. Then they scooted backwards and shuffled back to their feet. “Right.” For a moment they just stared over the edge of the bridge into the cavern, but eventually lifted their eyes back towards her. “Thank you, Undyne.”

Undyne nodded in acknowledgement, but couldn’t find any more words to say to them. _'You'll be alright'_ was stuck in the back of her mouth, but wouldn't leave it. It might turn out to be a lie. 

She waited until they were off the bridge before she gathered their food and paper bags and stood up again. Now it was her turn to take in a deep breath and let it out in a long exhale. 

She had just turned around and placed the first step towards Snowdin Forest, when another voice reached her ears.

“aren’t you taking on more than you can chew?”

Her shoulders tensed and then slacked. She turned around with a sigh to the view of Sans holding a burger with a bite-mark in it. She glared at him for a good moment, mentally working out the decision to either ignore him, express annoyance, or humor him. Undyne wasn’t particularly in the mood for the latter, but tried it anyway and showed her teeth with a strained grin.

“What about _these_ makes you think I can’t chew through anything?” Her expression dropped into a frown just as quickly. “Also, why are you eavesdropping on me.”

Taking his time, Sans just lazily lifted the burger back to his face and continued ingesting it in however magical way his body enabled him to, without having to actually open his mouth. Nothing Undyne had ever found the need to puzzle over, considering the various types of Monsters living in the Underground. Some did not even have any kind of facial features.

Sans shrugged. “i’m not, coincidentally i just have the same way home.”

One of her eyebrows lifted incredulously. “You have shortcuts.”

“too lazy.”

She dragged a hand over her face and just walked off, back onto the snowy path that would lead back to the Ruins. However, despite her show of irritation, her pace was rather slow, only quick enough for a lazy skeleton to keep pace - which he did. Undyne regarded him from the corner of her eye.

“So lazy you’re also skipping work, huh?”

“nah, i’m very legally taking the day off.”

Instead of verbal response, Undyne wordlessly inclined her head and now raised both eyebrows.

“yup. it’s pretty important to use your vacation days. i heard that taking a break once in a while is good for your mental health.”

She blinked, processing what this pinnacle of mental health just told her and couldn’t refrain from barking out a short laugh.

“Hah! Now that’s a good one.”

Since Sans was now right beside her she elbowed at him - and stopped in her tracks when her elbow _actually_ connected with the skeleton and sent him tumbling into the snow. Undyne, frozen in her motion, stared at him in surprise and he stared back, mirroring her expression. 

Sans hadn’t dodged her. 

But Sans _always_ dodged. That’s the whole reason she had even let him be a sentry, because despite being physically weak, he was able to demonstrate that, if anything, he was a master of keeping out of harm's way. And it’s not like she hadn't flung her elbow, her fist, or a spear at him countless times before. Because while she knew he couldn’t take much, she used to trust that he would avoid what he could not take. 

For some reason, she found her success at elbowing him now more worrying than anything else Sans had done or not done in the past months. And he still looked like he was as caught off guard about it as she was. Sans slowly patted down on his jacket and there was a squelching noise. He dug his hands under his jacket and after a little rummaging he shot two finger guns back out at her. Completely stained red, spattering ketchup in the process.

“yup, ketchup armor passed with flying colors.”

Undyne found that her jaw hung a bit open. Pushing down every urge to send the skeleton flying, too, her teeth audibly clicked back together, squeezing out a deadpan “_Amazing._” from between them. She became aware of her tight grip around the paper bag in her hand and proceeded to grab a fist full of the fries they had left over. She unceremoniously threw them at the skeleton. “Have some fries to go along with it.”

Sans didn’t move a bone aside from wiggling his pointed index fingers. “i can see you grinning.”

And yeah? Maybe she was. Because this was just _ridiculous_. 

“Go take a shortcut, Sans.”

She had considered helping him back up again, she really did, but not when he was oozing that disgusting stuff. It helped assure her that he was alright enough, though. Shaking her head lightly, one corner of her mouth maybe still slightly curled upwards, Undyne turned away from him and marched on. 

For some reason the smell of ketchup wouldn’t quite leave her and when she found some sticking to a few strands of her hair she groaned. She glowered ahead to where - as expected - a skeleton leaned casually against one of the trees that lined her path.

“Have you ever seen scissors lying around the house?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, I am so sorry that this chapter took so long, but it honestly drove me insane. I can't tell you how many times I almost deleted the whole part after the second *** break, because it was so hard to make it work the way I wanted it to. But some of the things conveyed through the dialogues in that part I really wanted to have there and not just explain everything through narration text. I just prefer the "show, don't tell" approach, but it really doesn't help when writer's block makes you feel almost illiterate.
> 
> But hey, I count it as a win that I don't hate this chapter as I anticipated I would now that I finally finished it! Still not sure about some charactizations, but I wrestled the blockages down. It's acceptable.


End file.
